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113Interpretation and Identity: Can the Work Survive the World?Critical Inquiry 12 (3): 564-575. 1986.Predictions concerning the end of the world have proven less reliable than your broker’s recommendations or your fondest hopes. Whether you await the end fearfully or eagerly, you may rest assured that it will never come—not because the world is everlasting but because it has already ended, if indeed it ever began. But we need not mourn, for the world is indeed well lost, and with it the stultifying stereotypes of absolutism: the absurd notions of science as the effort to discover a unique, prep…Read more
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4Exemplification, idealization, and scientific understandingIn Mauricio Suárez (ed.), Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization, Routledge. pp. 77-90. 2009.
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34Nelson Goodman's philosophy of art (edited book)Garland. 1997.A challenger of traditions and boundaries A pivotal figure in 20th-century philosophy, Nelson Goodman has made seminal contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of language, with surprising connections that cut across traditional boundaries. In the early 1950s, Goodman, Quine, and White published a series of papers that threatened to torpedo fundamental assumptions of traditional philosophy. They advocated repudiating analyticity, necessity, and prior assumptions…Read more
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Between the Absolute and the ArbitraryRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 189 (2): 237-238. 1999.
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194Take it from me: The epistemological status of testimonyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 291-308. 2002.Testimony consists in imparting information without supplying evidence or argument to back one's claims. To what extent does testimony convey epistemic warrant? C. J. A. Coady argues, on Davidsonian grounds, that (1) most testimony is true, hence (2) most testimony supplies warrant sufficient for knowledge. I appeal to Grice's maxims to undermine Coady's argument and to show that the matter is more complicated and context-sensitive than is standardly recognized. Informative exchanges take place …Read more
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203. Metaphor and ReferenceIn Zdravko Radman (ed.), From a Metaphorical Point of View: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Cognitive Content of Metaphor, De Gruyter. pp. 53-72. 1995.
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153TrustworthinessPhilosophical Papers 37 (3): 371-387. 2008.I argue that trustworthiness is an epistemic desideratum. It does not reduce to justified or reliable true belief, but figures in the reason why justified or reliable true beliefs are often valuable. Such beliefs can be precarious. If a belief's being justified requires that the evidence be just as we take it to be, then if we are off even by a little, the belief is unwarranted. Similarly for reliability. Although it satisfies the definition of knowledge, such a belief is not trustworthy. We oug…Read more
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54Richard Foley’s Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3). 2004.Descartes’ demon is a crafty little devil. Despite centuries of effort by exceedingly clever thinkers, he continues to elude our clutches. Skepticism endures. The reason, Richard Foley thinks, is not hard to discover. It is simply impossible to break through the Cartesian circle. Our only means of vindicating a claim to knowledge or rational belief is to show that it is produced or sustained by our best epistemic methods, that it satisfies the best standards we can devise for rational belief. Th…Read more
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108Education and the Advancement of UnderstandingThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 3 131-140. 1999.Understanding, as I construe it, is holistic. It is a matter of how commitments mesh to form a mutually supportive, independently supported system of thought. It is advanced by bootstrapping. We start with what we think we know and build from there. This makes education continuous with what goes on at the cutting edge of inquiry. Methods, standards, categories and stances are as important as facts. So something like E. D. Hirsch’s list of facts every fourth grader should know is slightly silly. …Read more
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28Optional Stops, Foregone Conclusions, and the Value of ArgumentCroatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (3): 317-329. 2004.If the point of argument is to produce conviction, an argument tor a foregone conclusion is pointless. I maintain, however, that an argument makes a variety of cognitive contributions, even when its conclusion is already believed. It exhibits warrant. It affords reasons that we can impart to others. It identifies bases tor agreement among parties who otherwise disagree. It underwrites confidence, by showing how vulnerable warrant is under changes in background assumptions. Multiple arguments for…Read more
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381Understanding: Art and ScienceSynthese 95 (1): 13-28. 1993.The arts and the sciences perform many of the same cognitive functions, both serving to advance understanding. This paper explores some of the ways exemplification operates in the two fields. Both scientific experiments and works of art highlight, underscore, display, or convey some of their own features. They thereby focus attention on them, and make them available for examination and projection. Thus, the Michelson-Morley experiment exemplifies the constancy of the speed of light. Jackson Poll…Read more
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107Considered JudgmentNew Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1996.The book contains a unique epistemological position that deserves serious consideration by specialists in the subject."--Bruce Aune, University of Massachusetts.
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119Non-foundationalist epistemology: Holism, coherence, and tenabilityIn Matthias Steup & John Turri (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Blackwell. pp. 156--67. 2013.
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12The Legacy of Nelson Goodman (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3): 679-690. 2001.Nelson Goodman was one of the soaring figures of twentieth century philosophy. His work radically reshaped the subject, forcing fundamental reconceptions of philosophy’s problems, ends, and means. Goodman not only contributed to diverse fields, from philosophy of language to aesthetics, from philosophy of science to mereology, his works cut across these and other fields, revealing shared features and connecting links that narrowly focused philosophers overlook. That the author of The Structure o…Read more
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35Analysis and the Picture Theory in the 'Tractatus'Philosophy Research Archives 2 568-580. 1976.I argue that the picture theory provides both a common referential hase and a common logical syntax for languages embodying alternative conceptual schemes. I offer an analysis of depiction, explicating the Tractarian concepts of pictorial structure, pictorial relationship, and representational form. Significant failure of reference and the existence of languages with incompatible ontological commitments show that on the molar level depiction is not required for sense. Using three premises, taken…Read more
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130``Is Understanding Factive?"In Adrian Haddock, Alan Millar & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 322--30. 2009.
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613 Skepticism AsideIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Knowledge and Skepticism, Mit Press. pp. 309. 2010.
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Eine Neubestimmung der Ästhetik. Goodmans epistemische WendeIn Nelson Goodman, Jakob Steinbrenner, Oliver R. Scholz & Gerhard Ernst (eds.), Symbole, Systeme, Welten: Studien Zur Philosophie Nelson Goodmans, Synchron. 2005.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Aesthetics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |